"Kirkasant" is the name of a planet in "Starfog" by Poul Anderson and also of another planet in Kirkasant by Axel Kruse.
Does "Kirkasant" mean "Holy Church"? We understand that Anderson's Kirkasanters are descended from his Aeneans and we also know that the Aeneans were deeply religious, including devout Christians, Cosmenosists, millennarians etc.
In "Starfog," are the Kirkasanters, the Serievans and the other populations of the interstellar civilization entirely secularist? Can they be? According to one theory, certain processes generate religion:
people unable to understand or control natural forces personified and placated them as gods of thunder, weather, fire etc;
later, uncontrollable social forces like war, wealth, justice etc were personified and placated;
these personified external forces were unified, becoming "God" instead of gods;
personification declined as external forces came to be understood and controlled;
however, control, particularly of social forces, has never been completed so that personification/deification continues in diverse forms.
In Anderson's Psychotechnic History, psychotechnicians come to understand psychological and social processes and also to control cosmic forces. In his World Without Stars, sociodynamicists are able to extrapolate socioeconomic trends. However, in the interstellar civilizations of "Starfog," the market is said to operate as impersonally as gravitation. Some of those who experience economic upheavals and recessions as external forces comparable to storms or earthquakes will be inclined to personify them.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I too thought "Kirkasant" meant "Holy Church." Perhaps the single ship which arrived at the planet which became Kirkasant were crewed by dissidents among the McCormac exiles who quarreled with the others about religious or philosophical issues.
And what HAPPENED to the main group of McCormac refugees? We don't know!
While your summarizing of how some people think religion began makes sense when applied to how pagan religions, cults, pantheons, etc., originated, I don't believe it is applicable to Judaism and Christianity. Both of these faiths began, I believe, thru direct divine revelation.
Ad astra! Sean
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